The educated class

When our children were little, their grandparents really liked talking "baby talk" to them. I'd watch as supposedly intelligent adults spent hours talking nonsense to unresponsive infants. both baby and adult seemed to enjoy it.

I hated it.

Why? Because my wife and I were convinced that it stunted brain development. Because of that, and because we had no desire to turn our own brains to mush by babbling like idiots, we always talked conversationally to our children from the day they were born. Sure, for the first year it was more of a monologue than a dialogue, but that was fine. We got used to speaking to them like they were adults.

We felt strongly enough about this that we eventually asked the grandparents to stop with the babbling. They thought we were killjoys, but they complied.

Vindication is oh-so-sweet. Not only were we right, but we were a living example of why there's an enduring achievement gap in this country.

This according to the New York Times, which hides its best stuff behind the Times Select wall. In an article in the Nov. 26 magazine, writer Paul Tough explores the challenges facing the No Child Left Behind act. After noting that black children are three times more likely to grow up in poverty than white children, he writes, researchers Betty Hart and Todd Risley decided to conduct an in-depth study of 42 families. What they found should surprise people only in its scope.

Vocabulary growth differed sharply by class.... By age 3, children whose parents were professionals had vocabularies of about 1,100 words, and children whose parents were on welfare had vocabularies of about 525 words. The children's I.Q.'s correlated closely to their vocabularies. The average I.Q. among the professional children was 117, and the welfare children had an average I.Q. of 79.

... By comparing the vocabulary scores with their observations of each child's home life, they were able to conclude that the size of each child's vocabulary correlated most closely to one simple factor: the number of words the parents spoke to the child. That varied greatly across the homes they visited, and again, it varied by class. In the professional homes, parents directed an average of 487 ''utterances'' -- anything from a one-word command to a full soliloquy -- to their children each hour. In welfare homes, the children heard 178 utterances per hour.

What's more, the kinds of words and statements that children heard varied by class. The most basic difference was in the number of ''discouragements'' a child heard -- prohibitions and words of disapproval -- compared with the number of encouragements, or words of praise and approval. By age 3, the average child of a professional heard about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. For the welfare children, the situation was reversed: they heard, on average, about 75,000 encouragements and 200,000 discouragements. Hart and Risley found that as the number of words a child heard increased, the complexity of that language increased as well. As conversation moved beyond simple instructions, it blossomed into discussions of the past and future, of feelings, of abstractions, of the way one thing causes another -- all of which stimulated intellectual development.

In other words, talk to your kids like they're adults, and they will rise to the challenge. Talk to them like they're servants to be ordered around (or worse yet, don't talk to them much at all) and they will stagnate.

So why do blacks do worse than whites on standardized tests? Trick question, because it's the wrong question. There is a gap in education, but it's not racial. Instead, race has become a misleading proxy for class.

Tough identifies other class-related differences. Poor kids tend to be taught not to question authority, for example, while middle-class kids grow up engaging in back-and-forth conversation and negotiation with their parents -- which is a lot more work for the parent, but ends up producing kids with more self-confidence, who expect their concerns to be taken seriously.

The article goes on to discuss what that means for equalizing academic performance, and it's not pretty: intensive (and expensive) intervention in order to compensate for the shortcomings at home.

But interesting as that is, it's not the point of this post. I'm going to use the article as a springboard to make two related points:

RACE IS OFTEN IRRELEVANT
It's time to look very hard at how race is viewed in our society, because education is not the only place where race is used as a proxy for other issues, with the result that actual causes (and thus actual solutions) are overlooked.

The most controversial way race is accounted for is in college admission and hiring, where schools or companies apply racial preferences as a way to increase minority representation. Laudable as that goal is, it isn't a long-term solution.

Because affirmative action is itself discrimination, it's only legitimate as a way to directly repair damage done by previous discrimination. It would have been unfair, upon repeal of Jim Crow laws, to simply say to blacks "okay, compete." Some degree of remediation was needed to level the playing field and make up for decades of discrimination. But such reverse discrimination must be narrowly tailored and carefully monitored, and ended as soon as the major effects of prior discrimination have been ameliorated. Which requires that objective standards be developed to decide when that has occurred, and that we are careful to separate the effects of racism from other, non-race-based effects for which affirmative action is not the solution.

I'm not saying affirmative-action should be ended; I'm saying it's way past time we had a conversation based around the question "when has the debt been paid, and how will we tell?" The Times article notes that black achievement soared between 1960 and the late 1980s, and then stalled. A reasonable explanation for that might be that by the late 1980s the major effects of racism had been accounted for, and after that the continued focus on race not only did increasingly little good but may have done active harm by diverting attention from underlying causes. It bears looking at.

BARRIERS ARE REAL
While race may not be the barrier it once was, barriers do exist. The biggest barrier, I believe, is class. We have a good degree of social mobility in this country, but the mythical Horatio Alger model simply doesn't work as social policy. From their home environment to the school they attend to the expectations ingrained in them from the day they are born, children from poor families must contend with things that most middle-class children do not.

My wife was raised in a blue-collar household. When she inquired about going to college (an ambition that itself set her apart from many of her peers), her parents didn't encourage her. Their response was "why do you want to do that?" and "don't expect us to pay for it." She was left entirely on her own to find the money, time and initiative to enroll in community college, then transfer to a four-year university. She worked full-time during her entire college career.

My dad has a PhD and my mom has a master's. From early in my childhood I understood that I was expected to go to college. Schoolwork was a priority. Money wasn't a problem; if I hadn't landed an ROTC scholarship, my parents would have paid for everything. Because I didn't have to work, I had plenty of time to study (I didn't, as a rule; but I could have....).

If our roles were reversed, would I have made it to college? Would I have made it through college while working full time? It's impossible to say. But in many situations, the answer would be "no".

And that's the key point. Is it possible to rise above adversity and succeed without help? Of course. But social policy shouldn't be based on the extraordinary exceptions, however convenient that may be for the comfortable.

So the challenge before us is this: identify the true barriers to achievement, and develop policies to address them. I suspect that such an approach would see racial preferences wither and die, while other measures -- primarily, class -- step up to replace them. Extra help for poor students would both address the real cause of disparity and, as a pleasant side effect, increase minority representation and performance.

And our kids? Big vocabularies. Further, one thing we discovered is that to them a concept is a concept. "Tree" is a concept, but so is "black hole." As long as both are explainable, one isn't drastically more intimidating or difficult to grasp than the other. Children teach themselves to talk; they're wired to assemble seemingly unrelated pieces into a coherent whole with minimal clues. If you don't tell them it's complicated (and thus encourage them to give up), more often than not they'll surprise you with their depth of understanding.

Every child deserves that chance.

affirmative action, education, race, politics, midtopia

To the moon!

NASA has long been committed to returning to the moon on a regular basis by 2020. What they were unclear on is what exactly they would do after that.

Now we know.

NASA unveiled plans yesterday to set up a small and ultimately self-sustaining settlement of astronauts at the south pole of the moon sometime around 2020 -- the first step in an ambitious plan to resume manned exploration of the solar system.

The long-awaited proposal envisions initial stays of a week by four-person crews, followed by gradually longer visits until power and other supplies are in place to make a permanent presence possible by 2024.

The south pole was chosen for several reasons, notably the suspected presence of water ice and the fact that it's almost always in sunlight -- an important consideration since the station will be largely solar-powered.

Why go? Well, beyond the scientific reasons, a permanent base on the moon would be both a demonstration project for extraterrestrial habitation and a first step toward exploring and eventually colonizing the rest of the solar system. It could be used as a way station and refueling point for expeditions to Mars, for instance, reducing the amount of mass such missions would need to lift out of Earth's gravity well. Looking way ahead, a truly self-sustaining colony could perform a lot of heavy industrial tasks -- mining, refining, even spaceship construction -- without needing to worry about pollution and in much lighter gravity.

In addition, the base would have relatively easy access to the dark side of the moon. Beyond learning more about that poorly understood area, the far side would make an excellent place to set up gigantic telescopes -- far bigger than anything we can orbit and far more sensitive than any Earthbound observatory, which must contend with distortions caused by atmosphere and light pollution.

It won't be cheap -- $100 billion or so over the next 20 years -- but given the time frame and the potential payoffs, it's worth it. It certainly will provide far more return on capital than, say, blowing $500 billion in a horribly mismanaged war. Or $400 billion on a badly designed prescription-drug plan.

And if the international fusion reactor project pans out, the moon base could eventually use all the Helium-3 lying about to provide hot showers.

space, science, moon, NASA, politics, midtopia

War on Terror mess #45,672

On Wednesday, we'll see the report from the Iraq Study Group, which reportedly will propose a gradual withdrawal from the country.

Then we find out that Donald Rumsfeld -- apparently able to see the obvious, if only three years too late -- proposed major changes in the administration's Iraq policy shortly before resigning.

But whether Bush is in denial or not -- and the answer to that would appear to be at least a qualified "yes" -- any solution will have to take into account that some of our most reasonable-sounding plans have, simply, not worked. This time, in Afghanistan.

a joint report by the Pentagon and the State Department has found that the American-trained police force in Afghanistan is largely incapable of carrying out routine law enforcement work, and that managers of the $1.1 billion training program cannot say how many officers are actually on duty or where thousands of trucks and other equipment issued to police units have gone....

In its most significant finding, the report said that no effective field training program had been established in Afghanistan, at least in part because of a slow, ineffectual start and understaffing.

Now I realize that corruption, incompetence and inefficiency are something of a hallmark for this administration, but even so this is quite an indictment. Afghanistan has its own problems, but until recently a raging insurgency wasn't one of them. This isn't a case of the police not being trained to fight a guerrilla war; it's a case of the police not being trained or equipped to do basic law-enforcement tasks.

And what is being done in response to the report? Why, more inadequacy and corruption, of course:

Afghan and American officials recently announced that they had instituted an “auxiliary police” program at the end of the summer, which aims to hire 11,200 officers in parts of the country beset by Taliban attacks, primarily in the south.

But those officers receive only two of the standard eight weeks of training, and the police training experts say the program could worsen the situation. They say the new hastily created program could place ill-trained and poorly vetted officers in the field and allow militias and criminals to infiltrate the force.

Nothing quite like coming up with a "solution" that might be worse than the problem, though to be fair, at this point the situation is a complex one with no easy answers.

And if you need more evidence that this administration has difficulty learning from its mistakes, I leave you with this:

The training experts say the United States made some of the same mistakes in training police forces in Afghanistan that it made in Iraq, including offering far too little field training, tracking equipment poorly and relying on private contractors for the actual training. At the same time, those experts say, the failure to create viable police forces to keep order and enforce the law on a local level has played a pivotal role in undermining the American efforts to stabilize both countries.

Great.

politics, midtopia

Bolton steps down

Earlier than expected, maybe, but with his nomination clearly dead in the water, his departure was a foregone conclusion.

In a sort of weird aside, the White House went out of its way to dispute the notion that Bolton "resigned." Technically they're right; he will simply leave when his recess appointment expires. But if the White House thinks that anybody outside of Washington reads much significance into the difference, they're wrong. Bolton has essentially withdrawn his nomination for a permanent spot because it's clear he will not be confirmed. The rest is semantics.

While I won't particularly miss Bolton, I do think he deserved an up-or-down vote. The president ought to be able to nominate anybody he wants for serve-at-the-pleasure-of posts like ambassadorships, and barring gross incompetence his choice ought to be respected. Bolton might have been a bull in a china shop, but he was not incompetent. He also comported himself pretty well during his tenure, not proving to be the disaster critics feared. One could argue that he was simply lying low in order to win permanent confirmation, but that's nothing but speculation.

Speaking of speculation, with Bolton leaving the rumor mill turns toward the question of who will replace him. There's some silly stuff, like suggesting Donald Rumsfeld should get the post (if there's one man more unpopular in Congress than Bolton, it's Rumsfeld). Other names tossed out there include Jim Leach, an outgoing Iowa congressman.

The speed with which Bush moves to nominate a successor will provide some indication of how important he views the post. Considering the myriad international issues facing the administration -- Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, North Korea, Sudan, free trade, global warming -- one hopes he moves quickly to name a replacement, and that the person he names is one likely to win quick confirmation.

Bush, Bolton, politics, midtopia

War? What war?

I was listening to a radio interview today with a retired Marine, Col. Thomas X. Hammes, a noted authority on modern warfare. He's on a promotion tour for his new book, "The Sling and the Stone", a treatise on the (poor) U.S. response to modern guerrilla warfare.

The interview was interesting enough; but what struck me was a point he made at the outset. He said that the "Pentagon had never gone to war" in Iraq. When asked what that meant, he used the example of the Future Tactical Truck.

The FTT is intended, in part, to be a replacement for the Hummer, which has proven poorly suited for counterinsurgency operations. It's underarmored, underpowered and ill-equipped, and a disproportionate share of U.S. casualties are incurred by troops using them.

Faced with these harsh realities, the Pentagon is moving to have the replacement ready by.... 2012.

As Hammes notes, that's a peacetime development cycle. In a time when people are fighting and dying daily in underarmored Hummers, it's a pace so leisurely it verges on criminal. If the same course had been followed in World War II, we would have fought the entire war with 37mm antitank guns and Grant light tanks. And lost.

Yet another sign, IMO, of how Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, three years in, never has taken the war in Iraq seriously.

Future Tactical Truck, Hummer, Iraq, Pentagon, politics, midtopia

Why atheism is not a religion

I've mentioned before that I'm an agnostic, for the usual reasons: I don't believe the existence of God can be definitively proven or disproven, so why waste time trying? Life's too short. And while I certainly hope there is an afterlife, I think that any God worth worshiping wouldn't base the entrance requirement on successfully picking the One True Faith out from the thousands of imposters.

I say that by way of explanation for linking to this thread over at one of my other homes, Blogcritics.org. It's the best explanation of why atheism isn't a religion I've ever read. And the comments discussion is outstanding.

I'm agnostic, not atheist, but since agnostics often get lumped in with their more-certain cousins I'm always glad to see a reasoned argument like this one.

My favorite paragraph:

One of the biggest selling points for the "atheism is a religion" trope is the common misperception that atheists know that there is no god. Certainly there are some who would say so, just as there are Christians who have no religious doubt whatsoever, but these are not (I hope) majority views. Insistence on the absolute correctness of your position is not a sign of either faith or rationalist purity; it's a sign of hubris and epistemological immodesty.

It echoes what I've said before: In matters of religion, it's always a good idea (and good for social harmony) to always consider the possibility that you are the one who is wrong.

Go give it a read. It's excellent.

atheism, religion, politics, midtopia

What one hand giveth....

Iran has offered to cooperate with the United States in Iraq, and hosted a conference with Iraqi and Syrian leaders to discuss ways to stabilize the country. Iran's president has also written a letter to the American people urging peace and cooperation.

Meanwhile, the other hand has been busy:

U.S. officials say they have found smoking-gun evidence of Iranian support for terrorists in Iraq: brand-new weapons fresh from Iranian factories. According to a senior defense official, coalition forces have recently seized Iranian-made weapons and munitions that bear manufacturing dates in 2006.

This suggests, say the sources, that the material is going directly from Iranian factories to Shia militias, rather than taking a roundabout path through the black market. "There is no way this could be done without (Iranian) government approval," says a senior official.

This goes along with previous reports that Shiite militiamen have traveled to Lebanon to receive training from Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that recently fought a short war with Israel.

These actions are not necessarily contradictory, nor even evidence that Iran is lying or is acting in bad faith. Helping an adversary dig themselves into a hole before offering to help them out of it makes perfect sense; it increases your leverage and raises the price you can exact for your help.

What they do point out is the urgency with which we must address the problem. Through confrontation or cooperation or some combination, the Iranian role in fomenting instability in Iraq must be dealt with. Because their ability to stir trouble far exceeds our ability to tamp it down.

Our options are few. There's no real way to stop the flow of arms or training without widening the war to include Iran -- a prospect that enjoys roughly zero support here at home. Never mind that such a move would by no means be a sure thing; Iran has three times the population of Iraq, a military that hasn't been sapped by years of sanctions, and some truly rugged terrain to fight in.

Galling as it may be, I predict we eventually will have no choice but to play ball with Iran. Unless we simply leave, in which case Iran also wins, because it is in the best position to pick up the pieces and expand its influence in the region.

Either way, it looks like we'll be witness to an ultimate irony: that our invasion of Iraq ended up strengthening one of the regimes we identified as part of the "Axis of Evil" when this whole thing started. That may turn out to be the ultimate legacy of Bush's foreign policy.

terrorism, Iraq, Iran, politics, midtopia

Surplus time!

The state budget news is in, and the headline, anyway, is good: a $2.2 billion surplus.

Surpluses are good, of course. Especially if the state uses them wisely -- to replenish reserves, lower tax rates and pay down debt, for example, rather than blow them on rebates or expensive new programs.

But let's not forget how we got here. Gov. Pawlenty balanced the state budget largely on the backs of local taxpayers, and the effects are still being felt: on the same day the state announced its projected surplus, they also estimated that property taxes would rise 8.2 percent in 2007, for a three-year average of 7 percent per year.

So tone down the patting yourselves on the backs, guys. There was no magic here. The state technically held spending flat by cutting local aid -- but property taxes went up as a result. That had the effect of making taxes more regressive, since property taxes are essentially a flat tax, mitigated somewhat by the homestead exemption.

At least the governor has enough shame to suggest that part of the surplus should be used for property tax relief, as a way to undo some of the damage. But he suggested doing so through a one-time rebate. That's a bad idea: "Jesse checks", as Gov. Jesse Ventura's rebates were known, helped contribute to the huge deficit Pawlenty confronted when he took office, because the rebates drained state reserves.

DFL leaders, more sensibly, are pushing permanent tax relief instead. That would be more just, and have a more predictable effect on state and individual finances.

Finally, heed the caveats on that big number. Half of it is essentially a one-time deal, and the other half would be needed to cover inflation if state spending remains at current levels. Given that, the most prudent use might be to stick it into state rainy-day funds, to help avoid the surplus/deficit/surplus roller-coaster we've been on in recent years.

surplus, Pawlenty, budget, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Texas and ethics: an oxymoron?

Gotta say, this doesn't look good:

A Texas official who receives any sum of cash as a gift can satisfy state disclosure laws by reporting the money simply as "currency," without specifying the amount, the Texas Ethics Commission reiterated Monday.

Texas officials must report all gifts over $250. What this ruling says is that they don't have to say whether the check was for $250 or $250,000. It would be a massive understatement to describe it as contrary to the spirit of transparency that underlines most ethics laws.

Luckily, most observers have not been so restrained.

"What the Ethics Commission has done is legalize bribery in the state of Texas. We call on the commission to resign en masse," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, who heads Texas Citizen, an Austin-based group that advocates for campaign finance reform.

Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said the "currency" interpretation would render it "perfectly legal to report the gift of 'a wheelbarrow' without reporting that the wheelbarrow was filled with cash."

In a letter to the commissioners dated Monday, Earle called such an analysis "absurd and out of step with both the law and current public attitudes and concerns about corruption in government."

The Ethics Commission has its defenders, who say the problem is the unclear law, not the Commission's interpretation of it. The commission, they say, is constrained by the language of the law, which nowhere specifies that the amount of the gift should be revealed. Indeed, Republicans have delighted in pointing out that the law in question was passed by Democrats in 1993.

(When reading the above law, be sure to pause at Subchapter C, lines 75-1 to 75-27, where there still exists a prohibition against communists running for office, except that the definition of "communist" has been changed to mean "anyone who commits an act reasonably calculated to further the overthrow of the government." Then skip ahead to line 77-8, where you'll find the law establishing the Texas Ethics Commission, and line 110-21, where you'll find the chapter discussing financial disclosure standards; line 124-3 is the particular language in question).

Republicans are right that the statute doesn't specify a dollar amount is required. But the law does require a "description" of any gift over $250, and if you read the chapter as a whole it's clear that dollar amounts are central to the process.

Isn't that the point of having an ethics commission -- to make such decisions when the law is silent on a particular detail? And shouldn't that decision take into account the purpose and function of ethics laws? Instead, the commission made a ruling that pulled its own teeth.

The good news is that the Texas legislature appears poised to fix the problem in the next session, by specifying that the disclosure must include the dollar amount. And governor Rick Perry has indicated he would sign it.

Maybe while they're at it they can specify the kind of behavior they expect from a commission charged with preventing corruption in public office. And foremost in that clause should be the following: "In its deliberations the commission shall seek to prevent corruption, not abet it."

corruption, Texas, politics, midtopia

Remember rehabilitation?

The United States famously locks up more people per capita than any other country, with about 7 million people currently behind bars, on probation or on parole (2.2 million of them are actually in prison or jail).

This is not a statistic to be particularly proud of. As with health care, where we spend more than anybody else and achieve mediocre results, we imprison more than anybody else and achieve mediocre results.

For some kinds of crime, of course, imprisonment is the only answer. But that's the most expensive and harmful way to do it. Not only does imprisonment cost tons of money; it takes people out of the work force and turns them into useless hunks of meat.

Maybe it doesn't have to be that way.

It is one of the least-told stories in American crime-fighting. New York, the safest big city in the nation, achieved its now-legendary 70 percent drop in homicides even as it locked up fewer and fewer people in the past decade. The number of prisoners in the city has dropped from 21,449 in 1993 to 14,129 this past week. That runs counter to the national trend, in which prison admissions have jumped 72 percent during that time....

For three decades, Congress and dozens of legislatures have worked to write tougher anti-crime measures. Often the only controversy has centered on how to finance the construction of prison cells.

New York City officials, by contrast, are debating whether to turn some old cells in downtown Brooklyn into luxury shops.

"If you want to drive down crime, the experience of New York shows that it's ridiculous to spend your first dollar building more prison cells," said Michael Jacobson, who served as New York's correction commissioner for former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and now is president of the Vera Institute of Justice, which studies crime-fighting trends worldwide....

New York was not the only city in which crime and imprisonment fell in tandem during the 1990s. From 1993 to 2001, homicides in San Diego declined by 62 percent while prison sentences dropped by 25 percent.

I'm sure the booming economy of the 90s had something to do with that -- which is another way of saying that a lot of crime is not the result of evil people but the result of lack of economic opportunity. So one way to fight crime is to increase economic opportunity.

But New York identifies another factor: drug treatment and mental-health counseling. In other words, by helping people with the problems that landed them in prison in the first place, you help them reach a point where crime is no longer an attractive option because they have better options and more to lose.

Another instructive statistic:

From 1992 to 2002, Idaho's prison population grew by 174 percent. the largest percentage increase in the nation. Yet violent crime in that state rose by 14 percent. In West Virginia, the prison population increased by 171 percent, and violent crime rose 10 percent. In Texas, the prison population jumped by 168 percent, and crime dropped by 11 percent.

The cause-effect there is unclear, of course. But it should certainly give us pause to think. Perhaps prisons should be reserved for those who truly need to be locked away. For the rest, attention should be focused on changing the conditions -- be they personal or societal -- that make crime an attractive option in the first place.

crime, politics, midtopia

Milestone

Right around Midtopia's 9-month anniversary, the 15,000th visitor has popped in.

Activity peaked at 2,400 visitors a month soon after launching, then fell as low as 1,000 visitors over the summer. Now visits are climbing again in what appears to be a sustainable trend toward and through 2,000 visitors per month, though we'll see what happens now that the November elections are past.

Beyond that, I have no idea how many people have the site on their RSS feeds.

It's just a humble little blog, but I like to think it's a quality one. Many thanks to everyone who has stopped by, particularly those that make Midtopia part of their daily routine and especially those of you that take the time to comment, making this more of a conversation than a publication.

politics, midtopia

Pahrump revisited

A week or so back I wrote about the town of Pahrump, Nev., and their effort to ban foreign flags.

Coyote Angry, a blog written by a Pahrump resident (and occasional Midtopia visitor) has an update.

Per the Las Vegas Review Journal, Sheriff Tony DeMeo is refusing to prosecute those criminal masterminds who dare to fly foreign flags. The good Sheriff even said the law was "unconstitutional" and crimes committed against persons over these issues would be prosecuted as "hate crimes"....

There's more fun at the link. Take a peek.

civil liberties, immigration, Pahrump, politics, midtopia

Idiots Anonymous

Hi. My name is Dennis Prager, and I'm a moron.

Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress, has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran.

He should not be allowed to do so -- not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.

Why, you ask, does one's choice of holy book threaten our very civilization?

What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.

Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress.

In Prager's world, apparently, when an elected official takes the oath of office, he isn't only swearing to uphold the duties of that office; he's also swearing fealty to the Christian underpinnings of our country.

Prager might have a point -- an odious, xenophobic point, but a point nonetheless -- if he were actually correct. But he's not.

First, the use of a Bible in the oath-swearing process is a tradition, but not mandatory, as even the State Department points out.

As evidence of that, two presidents declined to use Bibles when they were sworn in. John Quincy Adams took the oath with his hand on a volume of law; Theodore Roosevelt simply used nothing.

Heck, if Prager had a clue he'd remember that the Founders specifically forbade any sort of religious test as a requirement for holding office. Article VI reads, in part:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

And the presidential oath of office is studiously secular. From Article II:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

So Prager is wrong on the particulars. But he's also wrong on a general level. Because the point of swearing on a Bible is not to show support for the Bible -- it's intended to be a sign of taking the oath of office seriously by swearing on something important to you. It's akin to a blood oath, or "I swear on my mother's grave" or "cross my heart and hope to die."

So Christians swear on the Bible, because (the thinking goes) swearing on their religion makes them that much less likely to break their oath. But the oath, not the Bible, is the important thing.

And in that context, forcing a Jew or a Muslim or an atheist to swear on a Bible is not just obnoxious; it's pointless. Because to a Jew, for example, an oath sworn on a Bible is no more or less binding than an oath sworn on a telephone book.

Also, it's worth noting that the Founders provided the option of simply "affirming" their committment to their duties. And again, two presidents have done just that: Franklin Pierce and Herbert Hoover. This further demonstrates that the whole idea of "swearing on" something is simply a tradition, not something central to the process. Just like the words "So help me God" that most presidents add to the end of the oath.

Further, I believe members of Congress take the oath en masse, and nobody checks to see if they're swearing on a Bible, Playboy magazine or nothing at all.

Prager ratchets up the hyperbole later on:

Devotees of multiculturalism and political correctness who do not see how damaging to the fabric of American civilization it is to allow Ellison to choose his own book need only imagine a racist elected to Congress. Would they allow him to choose Hitler's "Mein Kampf," the Nazis' bible, for his oath? And if not, why not? On what grounds will those defending Ellison's right to choose his favorite book deny that same right to a racist who is elected to public office?

Note the logic: If it's not the Bible, it's the equivalent of "Mein Kampf."

That aside, the argument is fallacious. There are many religious objects and books that might be looked at askance if used in a swearing-in ceremony; but that has nothing to do with them not being the Bible. I doubt an Aztec would be allowed to take the oath while standing over a human sacrifice. And he definitely wouldn't be allowed to play soccer with the head afterward. But that says nothing about the use of something other than a Bible -- it merely demonstrates that some things are repugnant.

Ellison should be able to swear on a Bible if he wants to; he should be able to swear on a Koran if he wants to. He should be able to affirm his oath without swearing on a book at all if he wants to. The oath is the important thing, and his adherence to it is what he will be judged on.

Update: The Star Tribune did a cover story on the flap. It references a Eugene Volokh column at National Review Online that echoes many of the points I make above. While we both identified Pierce and Hoover as presidents who affirmed their oath rather than swearing it, he missed the fact that John Quincy Adams and Teddy Roosevelt didn't use a Bible at all. On the other hand he notes that Hawaii governor Linda Lingle, a Jew, was sworn in on the Tanakh.

Further discussion of Volokh's column can be found at a companion post on his blog.


Koran, Prager, Ellison, politics, midtopia

Noting the obvious

When the Marines throw in the towel, you know things are really out of hand.

The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military's mission in Anbar province.

The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. "The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality" remain the same, the official said.

This a fuller version of a report I first wrote about back in September. What's stunning is that the update is even bleaker than first thought, and shows that things are getting worse, not better.

But never mind all that. Remember, Bush says everything is going fine, and we'll win unless we quit.

The Baker report can't come too soon. Not because we expect great pearls of unexpected wisdom from them, but because the administration is apparently content to wait for the report before making any changes to its Iraq "strategy."

terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Another blow for civil liberties

A Los Angeles judge has ruled that President Bush has too-broadly asserted his authority to designate groups as "terrorist organizations", a designation that allows the government to freeze the assets of such groups and any individual associated with it.

Lest anyone think that the judge, Audrey Collins, is simply a liberal activist, think again:

The judge's 45-page ruling was a reversal of her own tentative findings last July in which she indicated she would uphold wide powers asserted by Bush under an anti-terror financing law. She delayed her ruling then to allow more legal briefs to be filed.

Part of this case would seem to be a no-brainer: the sanctioning of people "associated" with a designated group. That's such a broad designation that it amounts to guilt by association.

The designation of terrorist groups is more tricky. Clearly, there ought to be a mechanism for identifying such groups, and then targeting them with whatever pain we can muster. But "because the president says so" really isn't a very good standard. Which was the judge's point when she found the executive order to be vague and overbroad. Collins upheld the order's definition of a terror group; the problem was that it was solely up to Bush to decide if a given group met that definition, with no published criteria for doing so.

Which is really, in a nutshell, the Bush approach to security. He doesn't do nuance; he doesn't do balancing. He uses a shotgun to kill an ant. He takes a decent basic idea -- "must identify terror groups" -- and then goes into overkill mode, shrugging off competing concerns and asserting more-or-less-unbounded personal authority, thus provoking a backlash that ends up causing even more damage and distraction to his cause and our security.

As an aside, the plaintiffs -- the Tamil Tigers and the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group -- handily illustrate the truism that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Both have used terrorist tactics, but terror is neither their goal nor their primary weapon. I have little use for either group, but they have (or had) at least some legitimate grievances. Such complexity is why there needs to be some clear, objective criteria for designating a terror group to avoid including every paramilitary group or guerrilla army on the planet.

I'll put up a link to the text of the decision as soon as I can find it.

Update: The ruling can be found here (pdf).

civil liberties, terrorism, politics, midtopia

Walking the walk, so far

Okay, so there was the embarassing spectacle of Nancy Pelosi, corruption buster, supporting Jack Murtha for majority leader. Jack Murtha, king of the earmarks, the only unindicted Abscam target, the man who referred to reform proposals as "total crap" -- though he later said the comment was taken out of context, and he noted that he would support the proposals because Pelosi wanted it.

And then there was the prospect of the plum Intelligence chairmanship going to Rep. Alcee Hastings, who before becoming a Congressman was one of only six judges in U.S. history to be impeached and removed from the bench -- on charges of bribery and perjury.

Yes, definitely a few hold-your-breath moments there for the anti-corruption forces.

And yet....

Murtha was overwhelmingly rejected as majority leader, and Pelosi has finally decided that Hastings will not get the post -- not an easy decision, as she risks running afoul of the Black Caucus.

So push comes to shove, the Democrats so far are doing the right thing.

Truth be told, the Hastings chairmanship didn't bother me too much. Not that I approve of corrupt judges, but Hastings was acquitted in his criminal trial (granted, a key witness refused to testify), and by all accounts has kept his nose clean for the entire 14 years he's been in Congress. At some point forgiveness and redemption must be considered.

But by ditching Hastings Pelosi not only deprives critics of an easy target, she demonstrated a willingness to stand up to some powerful interests within her own party. Let's hope she continues to demonstrate such things.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol, Harry Reid laid out his priorities: ethics and stem cells.
So far, so good. Passing the ethics reforms will be one test. A bigger one is whether they can pass the nine overdue appropriations bills without the larding of pork they currently contain.

We shall be watching.

Congress, corruption, Reid, Hastings, Pelosi, politics, midtopia

A spirited special interest

There's an old debate starting up again here in Minnesota: should grocery stores be allowed to sell wine?

You'd think it would be a no-brainer. Why not? 33 other states allow it. It would be more convenient for shoppers, and the competition would help keep prices down. Is there any good reason not to do it?

Let's see if you find these arguments persuasive.

1. Cities really like the revenue they get from their municipal liquor stores;

2. It will cut into liquor store profits;

3. By making wine easier to buy, it will worsen the social problems linked to alcohol;

4. Grocers will promote low-priced wines, hurting the market for fine wines.

There's more at the liquor association's web site on the issue.

Persuaded? I'm not. My answers:

1. Too bad. You'll still get revenue; you just won't be able to overcharge for wine anymore.

2. Too bad. Welcome to capitalism. And liquor stores haven't been driven out of business in the 33 states that currently allow it.

3. An interesting argument for a liquor purveyor to make. Beyond that, we're talking about wine. Most minors don't go out and knock back a few bottles of merlot when they drink. Grocery stores sell cigarettes, another controlled substance, and they already sell 3.2 beer. There's no reason to think they can't handle the comparable responsibility of selling wine.

4. Huh? So what?

That about exhausts the public arguments against letting grocery stores sell wine.

So why has it been such a battle to make it happen? It's a classic case of a protected industry not wanting to give up its protected status. For legislators, it's a classic case of serving a special interest instead of constituents.

I used to live in Florida. There the issue wasn't wine; it was beer. Florida law -- a law pushed by large domestic brewers like Anheuser Busch -- required that all beer be sold in specific size bottles: either 8, 12, 24 or 32 ounces. That was fine for domestic brewers, but forced craft brewers and most imports to either produce a bottle specifically for the Florida market or simply not sell beer in the state.

Defenders of the law made arguments as specious as the ones above, claiming a rash of different bottle sizes would confuse consumers, bankrupt beer distributors and raise beer prices.

The arguments didn't stand up to scrutiny. In 2001, Florida eliminated the container law.

Florida, by the way, is one of the 33 states that lets you buy wine in grocery stores. If Florida can do it, surely a state as progressive as Minnesota can. Especially because polls show Minnesotans favor the idea by a 2-1 margin.

It's not the most burning issue in the world, but it's an easy one. Call your legislator or visit the grocery association's web site.

wine, Minnesota, politics, midtopia

Movement, but progress?

Lots going on in the Mideast, but is it leading anywhere?

A week after talks over a proposed Palestinian unity government collapsed, Israel and Palestine concluded a shaky truce meant to put an end to Israeli incursions and Palestinian rocket attacks. And on that uncertain ground, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is trying to build a new peace process.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reached out to the Palestinians on Monday in one of his most conciliatory speeches yet, saying he was prepared to grant them a state, release desperately needed funds and free prisoners if they choose the path of peace.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas was receptive, but Hamas militants were suspicious.

"This is a conspiracy. This is a new maneuver. Olmert is speaking about the Palestinian state without giving details about the borders," said Ghazi Hamad, a government spokesman.

But Olmert's suggestions are tantalizing. He essentially said Israel would withdraw from large parts of the West Bank, including uprooting long-established settlements, in exchange for recognition of Israel's right to exist, a renouncing of violence, and giving up any Palestinian refugee "right to return" to Israel.

That last could be a serious sticking point, but I don't see any real alternative. A negotiated compromise might work -- perhaps refugees could use a pool of repatriation money to buy their property back from the current owners -- but it's simply unworkable to suggest that large numbers of refugees can simply reclaim property that has been in other hands for nearly 60 years. They are, in essence, trading that land for a viable Palestinian state.

It's a reasonable offer. Many details remain to be worked out, of course, any one of which could sink the whole thing. And there will be the usual extremists who will try to scuttle the deal at all costs. But the Palestinians should look at this as the opportunity it is. If they are serious about improving the lot of their people and forging a peace that would let prosperity return, now is the time to prove it.

Palestine, Israel, politics, midtopia

The first investigation

Amazing what a little change of control in Congress will do.

The Justice Department's internal watchdog said Monday it has opened an investigation into the agency's use of information gathered in the government's warrantless surveillance program.

That should really say "re-opened":

Earlier this year, Fine's office said it did not have jurisdiction to open an investigation into the legality of the administration's domestic eavesdropping program. At the time, Fine's office referred calls for an inquiry to the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which reviews allegations of misconduct involving employees' actions when providing legal advice.

The Office of Professional Responsibility was denied extra security clearances to conduct an investigation that would include looking at some classified documents and other information that the Justice Department already possesses.

But now, after the election, the administration has given Fine's office -- not the OPR -- the necessary clearances.

It's a start.

civil liberties, eavesdropping, politics, midtopia

Score one for the GOP

Well, not the GOP leadership. But the opening salvo in the war against earmarks has been fired -- by a pair of Republican senators.

GOP Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina have decided to take a stand against overspending by objecting to the nearly 10,000 earmarks, or member-sponsored pork projects, larded throughout the spending bills Congress is currently considering.

Their obstinacy has convinced the leadership of the departing Republican Congress that they probably won't be able to pass spending bills in next month's short lame-duck session. Instead, they are likely to pass a stopgap "continuing resolution," which will continue funding all programs at last year's level until the new Democratic Congress passes its own versions of the funding bills.

Mr. Coburn says the decision not to pass earmark-stuffed catchall spending bills could save taxpayers a cool $17 billion. All 10,000 earmarks in the pending bills will expire if they aren't passed by the end of the year.

I'm guessing Coburn and DeMint aren't too popular with their colleagues right now -- but those colleagues also know better than to push for passage of the pork.

The loss of the pork aside, it's also a nifty political move because it puts the corruption ball squarely in the Democrats' court. It will now be up to Democrats to pass the actual spending bills -- and the whole country will get to see if they're serious about cutting back on the earmarks.

Shame on the GOP leadership for trying to pass the pork-laden bills. But kudos to Coburn and DeMint for objecting, and some props are due to the leadership if they listen and realize that Coburn and DeMint are right. Then we can turn to the Democrats and see if they're listening, too.

earmarks, corruption, DeMint, Coburn, politics, midtopia

Moderate muslims, Part II

As an addendum to my original post, we have two more examples.

In Pakistan, the lower house of Parliament amended the country's rape laws. Extramarital sex is no longer a capital offense, and rape victims no longer have to produce four witnesses to prove their case.

Senate approval is expected.

The picture is not wholly sanguine: Pakistan's law remains barbaric by Western standards, and radical Islamic and traditionalist groups protested. I would bet this law is observed more in the breach in Pakistan's tribal regions. But it shows moderates turning back extremist laws, a show of moderate power in a region where moderates can seem thin on the ground.

Meanwhile, in Egypt, a conference of Islamic scholars declared female "circumcision" -- a euphemism for removing the clitoris -- to be unIslamic, and said those who practice it should be punished.

The conference included Egypt's two top clerics.

Baby steps, perhaps, condemning obvious cases of injustice and barbarity. But it's a start.

Egypt, rape, Pakistan, genital mutilation, Islam, circumcision, politics, midtopia

Power to the fusion!

Under the category of "playing catchup from the long holiday weekend", this was a really cool development:

Nations representing half the world's population signed a long-awaited $12.8 billion pact last week for a nuclear fusion reactor that could revolutionize global energy use for future generations.

The ITER project will build a small-scale tokomak reactor, which uses a magnetic field to contain a plasma within which the fusion reaction occurs. It's the most promising of various proposed designs for a fusion reactor.

It's not something to hold your breath over. The reactor will take eight years to build, and even if it works a prototype power plant would not be built until about 2040.

But it's good to see countries putting serious money behind a project that could revolutionize energy production and even space exploration. This is thinking big. And while if it fails it will be called a boondoggle, if it succeeds it could mean seeing a working fusion plant in my lifetime -- something I frankly never expected.

fusion, energy, politics, midtopia

China's global reach

China, obviously, will be our strongest long-term competitor in the world, both economically and militarily. But the form that competition will take isn't always clear.

A lot of alarmists like to point to China's growing military muscle. They're modernizing their army and air force, expanding their navy and improving their missile technology.

But while the numbers can be impressive, most people overestimate China's military strength because they underestimate the effects of technology and the more prosaic arts of transport and logistics, both of which fall under the heading of "force projection."

Let's look at technology. China's air force, for example, contains about 2,000 fighters, bombers and attack planes, and is being modernized. But as you may notice from the link, that's largely because obsolete planes are being dropped from the inventory, not because large numbers of advanced planes are being added. And the technology of those "advanced" planes still trails ours by a generation or more. The backbone of its fighter fleet, for instance, remains the MiG-21, a design that is more than 50 years old.

Similarly, the Chinese navy is trying to build the first Chinese aircraft carrier. Sounds impressive until you realize it's based on the never-finished hull of an old Soviet carrier, the 67,500-ton Varyag. Meanwhile, we've got 12 carrier battle groups, built around 100,000-ton Nimitz-class and CVN-21 ships. That doesn't even count the various minicarriers we've got, like our amphibious assault ships.

And while the Chinese Army musters an impressive 2 million or so, it's mostly infantry, without decent transportation options. And their heavy units are armed with largely obsolete tanks and artillery.

Where does force projection come in? Well, in order to fight a war in the Middle East, for example, a military needs to be able to get the troops there and then supply them with food, ammunition and equipment. That takes a staggering number of ships, airplanes and trucks, not to mention the warships, fighter planes and security troops needed to protect the supply routes.

It's such a staggering job that there is currently only one country with the ability to fight a war anywhere in the world: the United States. China may be growing powerful, but they simply are unable to invade, say, Canada. And they will remain unable to project serious force for a long, long time.

So militarily, China poses only a regional threat. Fight in the Mideast? We win. Fight in countries neighboring China? More of an even match, with quality and long supply lines squaring off against quantity and short supply lines. Invade China? We lose. The initial fighting aside, there's simply no plausible way to occupy and pacify 1.3 billion people.

But if China isn't a serious military threat, it still poses an interesting economic and diplomatic challenge.

There is no way that China can provide a U.S.-style standard of living to all of its people. 300 million Americans consume a quarter of global GDP doing so; lifting 1.3 billion Chinese to that level would take more than the global economy currently provides.

But the Chinese leadership is sitting on a powder keg of divisions: ethnic, regional, rich/poor, rural/urban, coastal/interior. China may look solid, but it's really more of an unstable empire than a unified nation.

That empire is held together with a promise: As long as nobody challenges the ascendancy of the Communist Party, they will provide improved standards of living. The populace has essentially agreed to trade political freedom for economic freedom.

But if the Party cannot keep holding up its end of the bargain -- and it can't, as I explained above -- that agreement will come into question.

So even though it's impossible to keep raising living standards, the Party will try for as long as possible. And that will take resources -- a staggering amount of it.

We've already seen some of the effect of this policy: bottomless Chinese demand has driven up prices for a range of commodities, from oil to steel to shipping. We can expect that to continue into the future, raising the prospect of regional conflicts over scarce resources.

Beyond that, though, Chinese diplomacy is shaping up as a tool China uses to secure the resources it needs to fuel its growth. And that is posing challenges to our interests that go beyond economics.

For instance, China appears to be well on its way to supplanting the West as the biggest aid provider to Africa. How is it doing it? By being cheerfully amoral about how and with who it does business. The West tends to tie aid to structural reform, like transparency, rule of law, elimination of corruption. There are many cogent criticisms of this approach -- not least that it sometimes hurts more than it helps, at least in the short term -- but at least it is attempting to reform broken systems.

China, by contrast, simply doesn't care. They've signed aid and construction agreements with a range of corrupt African governments, pouring billions into the continent, all for two things: business for Chinese companies, and building relationships with countries that have resources China will need in the future.

So China is rebalancing the world. Countries rich in natural resources suddenly find themselves with more negotiating power, as they can play China and the West off against each other while enjoying high prices for their exports thanks to the increased demand.

It can be viewed as a positive thing to see power shift from the developed countries to the Third World. But it can also be viewed less benignly, as power shifting from generally transparent and democratic economies to generally corrupt ones, overseen by tyrants, with very few of the benefits trickling down to the general populace.

That's how the world operated for much of human history, of course. But whatever damage China's rise may do to our own interests, the greatest loss may be the bungled opportunity to reshape the world in a way that increases justice and human happiness.

It may be inevitable. That "opportunity" might have been ephemeral, judged against the long march of history. But as the world plunges back into a modern version of the Great Game -- where the United States and China, along with Europe and possibly India, vie for economic and military supremacy around the globe -- it pays to reflect on how we need to adjust our goals and tactics. Not simply to survive and remain relevant, but also to see if we can achieve some part of that vision even as we compete, bare-knuckled, with a country that doesn't seem to share it.

Africa, China, politics, midtopia

Romney moves right

Mitt Romney has stirred some bipartisan excitement when considering 2008 presidential candidates. He's smart and interesting; he was a successful Republican governor of a heavily Democratic state (Massachusetts), showing he can get things done when bipartisanship is called for; and he took a solid stab at reforming his state's health-care system.

He's a Mormon, too, which is neither here nor there, but it would make him our first Mormon president.

However, the man who ran for governor as a moderate in 2002 has decided that he wants to stake out the right wing of the Republican primary race.

n an interview with The Examiner, Romney described himself as more conservative than Republican rivals McCain, R-Ariz., and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on a variety of issues. “We’re in a different place on immigration; we’re in a different place on campaign reform; we’re in a different place on same–sex marriage; we’re in a different place on the president’s policy on interrogation of detainees,” Romney said.

“I’m a conservative Republican, there’s no question about that,” he said. “I’m at a different place than the other two.”

Now, it's not too hard to be a Republican and be to the right of McCain and Giuliani. And placating the GOP's conservative base is often seen as a necessary part of winning the nomination.

And he's a bit hard to pigeonhole. I like some of his policies: Besides his health-care proposal he came up with some excellent education initiatives, spent a lot of time and energy on environmental issues (though he opposed the Cape Cod wind farm and favors drilling in ANWR) and has been maverick enough to support such things as affordable housing, the minimum wage and an assault-weapon ban.

But the picture that's emerging is not a candidate I could vote for.

He balanced his budget the same way Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty did -- on the backs of local governments -- which simply made the overall tax system more regressive.

And he's a fairly conventional social conservative: hardline pro-life (he supported the South Dakota bill that would have banned all abortions, with no exceptions for the rape, incest or the health of the mother). He opposes the "morning after" pill because, even though it's just high-dose contraceptives, it could conceivably prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. He opposes stem-cell research that uses cloning as a lab technique.

He wants to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, and has already asked the Massachusetts state legislature to do the same thing to the state Constitution.

Beyond the merits (or lack thereof) of such positions, it signals a willingness to use the same old wedge issues as part of his run -- something I (and, I hope, most voters) are heartily sick of.

Bleh. I have little use for McCain, so that leaves Giuliani as the only current Republican candidate that could earn my vote. I'm still willing to give Chuck Hagel a listen, but in many ways he's even more conservative than Romney. He'd have to paint a pretty compelling picture to make me overlook that.

Update: Boston Globe columnist Joan Vennochi weighs in, with more details of the contradictions between Romney then and Romney now.

Hagel, Romney, politics, midtopia

The weirdos in charge

Over at CBS, Dick Meyers has an interesting -- and revealing -- essay on how the media does and does not cover politicians -- in this case, the Republicans that took over the House in 1994 and ran it for the next 12 years.

This is a story I should have written 12 years ago when the "Contract with America" Republicans captured the House in 1994. I apologize.

Really, it's just a simple thesis: The men who ran the Republican Party in the House of Representatives for the past 12 years were a group of weirdos. Together, they comprised one of the oddest legislative power cliques in our history. And for 12 years, the media didn't call a duck a duck, because that's not something we're supposed to do....

The iconic figures of this era were Newt Gingrich, Richard Armey and Tom Delay. They were zealous advocates of free markets, low taxes and the pursuit of wealth; they were hawks and often bellicose; they were brutal critics of big government.

Yet none of these guys had success in capitalism. None made any real money before coming to Congress. None of them spent a day in uniform. And they all spent the bulk of their adult careers getting paychecks from the big government they claimed to despise. Two resigned in disgrace.

Having these guys in charge of a radical conservative agenda was like, well, putting Mark Foley in charge of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus. Indeed, Foley was elected in the Class of '94 and is not an inappropriate symbol of their regime.

He goes on, recounting Gingrich's piousness even as he cheated on and divorced two wives, the spectacle of Dan Burton and Robert Livingston and Henry Hyde and the rest.

What you take away from this piece probably depends on what you bring to it. On the one hand his description of the House GOP leadership is spot on, as far as it goes, as is his noting that the media undercovered the contradictions and personal pecaddillos of a group that was, after all, running on a moral slate.

But you could also point to this as evidence of liberal media bias ("See? He harbored secret dislike for Republicans!") or conservative media bias ("See? They covered for the GOP for years!"). Or perhaps simple incompetence, because providing the public with unvarnished images of their leaders is one of the roles of the media, and Meyer is admitting to a manifest failure.

That's not entirely fair, of course: in a world where journalists are supposed to be objective, it can be difficult to sort out what personal observations are legitimate news and which are not, and most reporters will err on the side of caution. But that can breed a general timidity that serves nobody well. And few people are well-equipped to deal with the spin and criticism and outright threats (to access, to livelihood, to reputation) that come with covering politics. If you know your every decision will be criticized by someone, it's easy to start second-guessing yourself all the way to self-censorship in the name of politesse.

Still, that's a known risk, and while I don't wish to minimize the size of the problem, it's really no excuse. Develop ways to navigate those shoals or get out of the business. Or become a columnist, where there's less need to separate one's reporting from one's personal beliefs.

Most importantly, though, Meyer (and other reporters) need to learn from their mistakes and don't make them again. Man up, take a deep breath, and call it as you see it. Because integrity is ultimately a reporter's only asset, and the only thing they'll look back on with pride in later life. Don't sell it out because you don't want partisans to say bad things about you.

Dick Meyer, journalism, politics, midtopia

Anyone want Syrian help?

It comes down to who you believe, and what you think their motives are.

Syria yesterday offered to help stem the violence in Iraq, a move that Iran supported by inviting Syrian and Iraqi leaders to a conference in Tehran.
Good news, right? Well, it depends on how you view those two countries.

There's no doubt that Syria and Iran could be influential in quelling the violence in Iraq, since they both have bases of support in the country and their borders contain the infiltration routes that insurgents use for supplies and recruits.

It also seems logical that both have an interest in stabilizing the situation before the violence spills over their borders.

But the United States has accused both Syria and Iran of helping to stir up the violence in the first place, and both are major supporters of Hezbollah, which besides vowing the destruction of Israel has proven to be a major destabilizing force in Lebanon.

In addition, we have WMD-related concerns with both countries -- and you can be certain that Syria and Iran will seek slack on those matters in return for cooperation.

And while both countries may be interested in a stable Iraq, they're not particularly keen on a powerful or democratic Iraq, either of which could end up working against their long-term interests.

So when weighing their offer, a lot of variables get factored in: How sincere are they? Should they be rewarded for stirring up trouble in the first place? How much slack are we willing to give them on WMDs and Hezbollah? What final result are they really working for? How badly do we need their help? How do we judge whether they're fulfilling their end of the bargain?

However it turns out, we should certainly be talking to them. Anything that might reduce outside support for the violence should be pursued. But this is just another example of the complexity of diplomacy in the Middle East, where everyone shares a link or an interest with everyone else, even mortal enemies, and sifting out the reality from the blandishments can be maddeningly difficult.

And perhaps it will serve as one more reminder of the deadly naivete with which the war in Iraq was planned and pursued, where "they'll welcome us with flowers" constituted almost the entirety of postwar planning, revealing a shocking ignorance of the many forces at work in the region.

While I disagreed with the premise for Iraq, I don't have a fundamental problem with the idea of taking down really bad rulers simply because they are really bad. But next time -- if there is a next time -- I hope that at least we go in with our eyes open. If so, then maybe learning that lesson is one silver lining of the Iraq debacle.

Syria, Iran, Iraq, politics, midtopia

Iraq roundup

What is to be done about Iraq?

Democrats want a timetable for withdrawal, which critics say is tantamount to surrender and will lead to a full-scale civil war.

The latter point is probably true. But the alternatives aren't particularly persuasive.

Part of the problem is the administration, which still refuses to concede anything to reality.

Dick Cheney: "We'll win this war by staying on the offensive — carrying the fight to the enemy, going after them one by one if necessary, going after those who could equip them with even more dangerous technologies."

President Bush: "We'll succeed unless we quit."

Such sentiments prompted this response from former Republican leader John Kasich: "They were totally obstinate in the end. To keep going around and saying that everything’s great and how it’s all going well in Iraq was ridiculous. There’s such a thing as being firm, and then there’s such a thing as ignoring reality.”

And other influential war supporters are speaking up, too, saying the war has become a disaster.

Kenneth Adelman: "This didn't have to be managed this bad. It's just awful."

Richard Perle: "If I had known that the US was going to essentially establish an occupation, then I'd say, 'Let's not do it.' It was a foolish thing to do."

Then the godfather of realpolitik himself spoke up.

Henry Kissinger: "If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible."

Such talk prompted a rebuttal, from Lindsey Graham: "We do not have security in Iraq. The only way you'll ever get a political solution to the differences that exist among the Iraqi people is to control the violence."

Well no kidding. I've been saying the same thing since this blog started. Where has Graham been for the last couple of years?

But note how his response does not even try to defend the administration's handling of the war -- an increasingly common occurence. Everyone seems to recognize the administration's ineptness -- except the administration. Given the ongoing happy talk from Bush and Cheney, it raises one big question: Whatever strategy we eventually settle on, is victory possible as long as this administration is in charge of running it?

What does the military think? Notwithstanding last week's Senate hearings, where the top general in Iraq argued against a withdrawal, the Pentagon sees three stark options, dubbed "Go big, go long or go home."

"Go big" would send hundreds of thousands more U.S. and Iraqi troops into the fray. But it's pretty much a nonstarter, because there simply aren't enough soldiers to do that.

"Go home" was also rejected, with the Pentagon predicting it would push Iraq into a full-blown civil war.

That leaves "Go long", a hybrid approach that would cut U.S. troop levels while expanding their training and advisory role.

"Go long" doesn't strike me as a solution as much as a disguised withdrawal. The eventual goal is to cut U.S. troop levels to 60,000 from the current 140,000. I just can't see how 60,000 troops will obtain better results than 140,000. An immediate withdrawal may lead to spiraling violence, but "go long" just seems like a way to draw out the pain, not a serious attempt to win.

That's why my argument has always been to either get serious ("Go big") or go home. If "go big" is impossible, that doesn't leave too many options. But nobody is eager to sound the retreat.

So what can we do?

The problem is fundamental: corruption in the central Iraqi goverment and infiltration of the Iraqi security forces by sectarian groups. I wrote about problems with the Iraqi army a while back; here's a parallel story on the Iraqi police.

The Iraqi policemen begged the Americans not to make them go out. They peeled off their clothes to reveal shrapnel scars from past attacks. They tugged the armored plates from their Kevlar vests and told the Americans they were faulty. They said they had no fuel for their vehicles. They disappeared on indefinite errands elsewhere in the compound. They said they would not patrol if it meant passing a trash pile, a common hiding place for bombs.

The Iraqis eventually gave up and climbed into two S.U.V.’s with shattered windshields and missing side windows, and the joint patrol moved out. One Iraqi officer draped his Kevlar vest from the window of his car door for lateral protection. During a lunch break, the officers tried to sneak away in their cars.

This is not an example of Iraqi cowardice; it's a rational response to being sent out into a war zone in unarmored vehicles and light kevlar vests, backed by a corrupt and inadequate support network that is unable to pay, equip and supply the field units.

What it does show is just how far the police are from being an effective counterinsurgency force. And since they make up a large portion of Iraqi security forces (perhaps 140,000 police compared to 130,000 Iraqi troops), it's easy to see just how far we are from having the hundreds of thousands of well-trained, well-equipped Iraqis needed to secure the country.

And the biggest obstacle to creating those Iraqi soldiers is not the number of U.S. trainers, although that's a factor. It's the Iraqi government. Until the government demonstrates an ability to keep its house in order, victory is impossible.

If "go home" is unpopular, "go long" isn't a winning strategy and "go big" is impossible, we're left with one alternative: a timetable for the Iraqi government to shape up. The only real question is how much time and wiggle room we give them.

Pull out immediately? No. Pull out unless the Iraqi government can show it can field an effective nonsectarian security force? Yes. And require that proof sooner rather than later.

Kissinger, Cheney, Bush, terrorism, Iraq, politics, midtopia

New look

I've finally taken the time to tweak the overall look of the site, for the first time since launching back in February. Nothing huge: just took off the background screen and replaced the title bar with something a little more professional looking.

Let me know what you think -- especially if something (like the title bar!!) doesn't load correctly in your browser.

politics, midtopia

Where are the moderate Muslims?

Here.

In Indonesia, gangs of Islamic radicals on "anti-vice" patrols (to bust up bars and movie theaters), are increasingly running into groups of cops, or pissed off citizens, who chase off the radicals (or arrest them.)....

In Bosnia, an Arab religious leader, a follower of the very conservative Wahhabi sect, accused a popular local religious leader of being a communist (that is, a Moslem leader that was less than truly Islamic during the decades of communist rule). This caused a major uproar, and the radical cleric felt compelled to make a public apology.

And here.

"The leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, recently issued a decree to its supporters: Kill at least one American in the next two weeks 'using a sniper rifle, explosive or whatever the battle may require.'

"Well, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, I am an American too. Count me as the one of those you have asked your supporters to kill.

"I am not alone, there are thousands of Muslims with me in Las Vegas, and many more millions in America, who are proud Americans and who are ready to face your challenge. You hide in your caves and behind the faces of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq. You don't show your faces and you have no guts to face Muslims. You thrive on the misery of thousands of Muslim youth and children who are victims of despotism, poverty and ignorance.

"During the past two decades, you have brought nothing but shame and disaster to your religion and your world. .

And here, too.

Even the Saudi government is getting into the act, though their complicity in spreading radical Wahhabism sort of undermines their credibility.

If someone says they haven't heard Muslims speak out against these acts committed in their names, it's because they haven't been listening.

terrorism, Islam, politics, midtopia

Contra-contraception

So you're President Bush. You've just been shellacked by the voters, and there's a chorus of calls for compromise and bipartisanship. So what do you do?

Besides his previously reported efforts to get controversial nominations and bills through the lame-duck Congress, how about continuing the culture war -- this time by putting an opponent of contraception in charge of the federal program charged with providing affordable contraceptives to the poor.

Eric Keroack, medical director for A Woman's Concern, a nonprofit group based in Dorchester, Mass., will become deputy assistant secretary for population affairs in the next two weeks, department spokeswoman Christina Pearson said yesterday.

Keroack, an obstetrician-gynecologist, will advise Secretary Mike Leavitt on matters such as reproductive health and adolescent pregnancy. He will oversee $283 million in annual family-planning grants that, according to HHS, are "designed to provide access to contraceptive supplies and information to all who want and need them with priority given to low-income persons."

On its website, A Woman's Concern says "commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness."

Sure sounds like the people who should be put in charge of distributing them.

The position does not require confirmation, and is subordinate to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt. But Leavitt himself has not been notably friendly to contraception, famously delaying a decision on the Plan B "emergency" birth-control pill for a year, in violation of his agency's own rules and with total disregard for the recommendations of his advisory panels.

I yearn for a future where the people put in charge of programs actually support the goals of those programs, where science is judged on its merits rather than its political implications, where policy is driven more by evidence than ideology, where serving the nation is more important than servicing a tiny partisan constituency.

Two more years.

Keroack, contraception, Leavitt, politics, midtopia

GOP chooses more of the same

As predicted by Robert Novak earlier this week, House Republicans chose John Boehner as their minority leader and re-elected Roy Blunt as whip, returning the same leadership that led them into this year's disastrous elections.

In doing so they follow the lead of Senate Republicans, who did the same thing on Tuesday.

The Republicans seem awfully complacent for a party that just lost Congress.

Blunt, Boehner, politics, midtopia

Another Minnesota first

Something you wouldn't (really, couldn't) have seen 40 years ago.

The Minneapolis Aquatennial Queen of the Lakes is trading her tiara for a kevlar helmet and the sands of Iraq.

Jessica Gaulke, chosen in July as Queen of the Lakes for a year, is giving up her title because her National Guard unit has been activated for duty in Iraq. Gaulke, 22, a sociology student at Augsburg College who visited Japan as part of her Aquatennial ambassador duties, will be going to the Mideast as a diesel generator mechanic.

As far as anyone knows, it's the first time an Aquatennial queen has been in the military, much less called to active duty during her reign.

Good for her. And us. Not because we're in Iraq, but because of what it says about the military, increasing opportunities for women and changing societal attitudes toward them.

Gaulke, Minnesota, Aquatennial, politics, midtopia